February 13, 2017

The Unintended Consequences of Constant Trump-bashing

Since Donald Trump became president-elect, the left has gone to great lengths to ceaselessly chip away at his legitimacy. The reasons are clear - they have lost so much power since 2010 - congress, the senate, governorships, and state houses - that really all they have left is weeping and wailing as if the world is ending. Everything president Trump has done, and will do, has been and will be decried as the worst decision or action or decree ever. They're bleating like sheep. Their goal is twofold; (i) to stop Trump from being to accomplish anything during his tenure and (ii) to destroy his support among his voters based on the first point and based on the cacophony of noise about how stupid, ill-tempered and unqualified he is. By osmosis they hope it will sink in with voters. Conversely the expectation is that the constant vitriol will keep Democrat voters engaged and eager to vote in midterms and in 2020.

This is where unintended consequences kick in. People are starting to tune it out. I was listening to radio station WBEN early this morning and they were conducting a survey about the Grammy Awards. The question asked was "When entertainers get political you...". One of the staff mentioned that someone had said or tweeted that as soon as Jennifer Lopez, the very first presenter, started saying "...in difficult times like these", that the channel got changed. That correlates to the poll results - as at this writing, 72% said they tune out, 19% get angry and only 9% said they don't mind. It's not just entertainers. Faith in mass media is at all time lows. And of course faith in congress is in a state of perma-fail.

Timothy Leary said in 1966 tune in, turn on and drop out. Of course that was counter-culture, drug culture garbage but it's kinda true here. The Tea Party tuned in during the Obama administration, they turned on in big numbers in every election since 2010. And now they're dropping out of the mass media, cultural elite, circled wagon echo chamber and finding other sources of news and information or else just going on about their business until the next election.

Of course the media and the progressive liberal left and entertainment stars don't realize it yet. They may never realize it. What they are doing is reinforcing their own image as out of touch, spoiled, tinfoil-hatted, hate-filled, liars and purveyors of nonsense. They've shot themselves in the foot a few times and are reloading to do it again.

As conservatives we shouldn't mind. In fact we should be grateful that they are doing this. They are disgusting many in middle America as they have long since parted ways with common sense, civility and human decency. And as they rant and rave, Trump and the Republicans in Congress have elbow room to move things forward and in 2018 and 2020 a great economy (which the media belatedly has found is not so great, where was this during Obama's tenure?) will ensure more victories. And as the media bleats about the wall and travel bans, the economy is going to get fixed. Taxes are going to get fixed and much more is going to get fixed.

As a conservative, Trump supporter or not, should bring a smile to your face because conservatism versus populism is a much better battle than conservatism versus entrenched progressivism.